"Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" (Neil Diamond) review

To hear a Neil Diamond record of circa 1969-70 is to find Middle American peace sign, hitch-hiking, earth-in-balance transcendence. It’s a breaking through of the walls erected to place us all within categories and definitions.

Diamond’s serrated voice on vinyl of that era opens – like sweet blown grass – a window into what my mom would’ve been listening to at the time – somewhere in the cross-cultural bag of the Stones, The Band, Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass, the Temptations -- in the kitchen of our little house beside a gravel road.

"Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show," the opening title track to Diamond’s 1969 album deserves a listen a listen on your turntable. Put aside the overplay this standard receives on the corporate world’s Oldies and Classic Hits station and hear the song with new ears. Listen to the entire album and put life in its circular perspective.

While none of the other tracks have the ’45 hit single appeal of the opening or its phenomenal closing track – “Sweet Caroline – taken as a whole, the album emanates a breezy, spiritually sound feeling befitting the up-and-coming singer-songwriter of the era --appropriate because Neil Diamond is not conventional pop. Or is he?

Depends on how you define pop music. If your definition is limited by a post-MTV era paradigm of machinery, manufacturing and imagery, then no – Diamond is not standard pop. However, if your understanding has been broadened by 60s era Wall of Sound, Wrecking Crew and the Civil Rights amalgamation of rock n’ roll, soul, pop and country, then Diamond and his band stand with the artists who molded commercial pop with a sense of craftsmanship.

As an ‘80s teen-ager I lacked historical perspective and dismissed Neil Diamond as some adult contemporary wimp liked by old people. Some of that, Diamond brought on himself. “Love on the Rocks.” What the hell is that? “Heartlight” from the E.T. soundtrack? Bland, corporate contrived and uninspired. Like some of the most multi-talented, yet non-purist artists – Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Elton John – Neil Diamond became more about the name – the brand – than the artistry.

It was only in college during the early ‘90s, while listening to stuff like Sonic Youth, the Pixies, the Jesus and Mary Chain…that I learned Neil Diamond had relevance. That brings me to back to Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show. In January of 1969, after his last two albums failed to chart, Diamond left New York and went to 827 Thomas St. in Memphis, home to American Sound Studio and laid down tracks with the house band, the Memphis Boys. Guided by record producer Chips Moman, the band added a complementary musical groove to Diamond’s growing prowess as a songwriter.

While not as lauded as Stax’s Booker T. and the MG’s, the Memphis Boys were steady and steeped in southern traditions of gospel, soul, rock and country. Having cut his teeth on tunesmithing at New York’s Brill Building in the early 60s, Diamond’s lyrics and music at the end of the decade had the feel of his earlier catchy pop hits like “Cherry, Cherry,” but also revealed the growing introspection that would mark his early ‘70s work.

Bobby Woods played the gospel piano intro to “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” setting the stage for Diamond to enter hot and stoic, vocals steady. Starting soft and slow-ow, like a small earthquake and when he lets go-o, half the valley shakes. The song builds to a crescendo as he narrates a tale, straddling the line of fleshly pleasure and spiritual sensations. Diamond – with strong support from the band –pays homage to southern gospel tradition as only an East Coast Jewish boy, dazzled by the early sounds of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, can.


Tunes like “Dig In” and “Deep in the Morning” are sexy, grooving song with a blues edge driven by Guitarist Reggie Young and bassist Mike Leech. “River Runs, Newgrown Plums” features Bobby Emmons sputtering organ solo (like something traditionally out of a baseball park or ‘70s game show), which sounds a little dated, yet cool considering there’s nothing like it on the radio today. The solo gives the song a special spice. The song has the buoyancy of Diamond’s early hits and the line, “honey, it’s natural, I love you” is a classic Diamond-like lyric of that era. Diamond’s best line in any of the songs is “I’m a ten dollar dreamer” from the song, “Memphis Streets.” With fun lyrics about working the day shift and driving a ’59 Ford, this song – like many on the album -- reflect a young adult sense of freedom and abandon. In no less than three songs, he talks about going barefoot. Girls..God..himself…barefoot by the stream.

"You're So Sweet, Horseflies Keep Hangin' Round Your Face" is a fun parody of a corny country song. The lyrics invoking Kentucky moonshine, front teeth missing, county rodoes..would make this a fun one to sing verbatim from the dance floor of a bar as a band plays. "Long Gone" sounds more like country with accoustic rock guitar, absent parody.

Much of the album’s songs show restlessness, a longing to drift along the roads of America, aimless, carrying a few worldly possessions, while opening up to fresh love and life experience. While the world approaching 1970 was growing rapidly more urban and polluted, there seemed – in Diamond and other artists of the time – a reaching out for that something pure and authentic from the country.

In the ballad “Juliet,” Diamond signs of “wandering around a grown man, no more than a small boy.” The dichotomy is evident in lyrics throughout the album. There’s the youthful frivolity and desire for the road, alongside an underscoring knowledge that it’s not all it promises and the game is almost up. It’s like he sings in “Glory Road” – And I know glory road’s waiting for me, rest my load, now I know glory road won’t set me free. The song, with its Kerouackian references to Colorado, Wyoming, LA, Louisiana…hints at the loneliness Diamond would later explore in “I Am, I Said.”

“And the Grass Won’t Pay You No Mind” is the purest portrait of Diamond’s pop-rock lyricism and maturing song writing talents. An acoustic, country-folk-styled ballad, the song is earthy and poetic, capturing a still moment that had to resonate with young people coming of age in a world of noise and confusion. More than romantic love, the song was downright spiritual. Elvis Presley would cover “And the Grass Won’t Pay You No Mind” a few months later and I’m guessing it’s because he couldn’t resist the opening line, “Listen easy, you can hear God calling.”

Of course, Elvis would be all over Diamond’s smash hit of the year – “Sweet Caroline” – adding the pop-rock smash to his Vegas shows. Originally, not part of the album, its popularity prompted MCA to tack it at the end of side two. Good call. “Sweet Caroline” is a serendipitous work of pop transcendence, an enveloping arch over the waters of human kindness. Sung with confidence, it’s become Diamond’s signature song. Could we imagine Boston’s Fenway Park without it now?

Diamond wrote the song after seeing a picture in Life magazine of Caroline Kennedy riding a horse. Is that not appropriate?

Was not the entire era a musical Camelot?


Gateway Music

Elvis in Memphis -- After completing Diamond’s album at American Sound Studios, Chips Moman and the house rhythm section recorded this album with Presley and the result was artistic, commercial sophistication – “In the Ghetto,” “Suspicious Minds”... Soulful, poignant and muscular, this album – with the right mix of professionals – brought Presley back to his roots and rescued his career and talents from Hollywood kitschdom. Just as Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show prompts us to see Neil Diamond beyond the Desiree-like Vegas sequins, this album shows Elvis beyond ersatz soundtracks and Liberace bombast.

Dusty in Memphis – A must for any record collection. Like the aforementioned Presley and Diamond, Dusty Springfield’s career was lagging when she recorded in Memphis’s American Sound Studios. And like those guys, her career and talents were injected with new vigor. A British pop diva, she traveled across the pond to work with musicians who would fuel her work with a soulfulness they had lent to Ray Charles, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin. Tommy Cogbill, who helped produce and contribute bass lines on Diamond’s album played the classic, sexy bass intro we all know from “Son of a Preacher Man.” Without this white English girl’s homage to black soul music, we would have no Amy Winehouse or Adele.

Just look for music everywhere from these Memphis musicians and producers. Their handiwork crossed genres and decades – Gene Vincent, Carla Thomas, the Box Tops, Sly and the Family Stone, Tammy Wynette, B.J. Thomas…Chips Moman wrote “Luckenbauch, Texas" for Waylon and Willie. The list goes on and the hunt can only be a thrill.

Outside the box gateway
As a young man, Neil Diamond received a scholarship to be on New York University’s fencing team. No way, I can resist recommending one of my favorite books by one of my favorite all-time authors -- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Holden Caulfield was manager of his prep school’s fencing team. Everyone in the world knows that, I’m sure.